Streetlights Carry Me Home Tonight
by sentbyfools
Summary: It's over before it even started, and Mike goes into work with an emptiness in his chest that not even a pile of briefs can fill. (and then the curse breaks.)


**Title: **streetlights carry me home tonight

**Summary: **It's over before it even started, and Mike goes into work with an emptiness in his chest that not even a pile of briefs can fill.

(and then the curse breaks.)

**Notes: **This is otherwise known as the Once Upon A Time AU in which Mike and Harvey are soulmates separated by Regina's curse, which doesn't work exactly as it did on OUAT, throwing people all over the world instead of creating the waking nightmare that is Storybrooke. Set during an AU post-season 1 of Suits, with some scenes/episodes in season 1 happening a little different of course. Title from "The Streetlight Diaries" by Search the City which was the inspiration for this fic and is a must-listen. I don't plan for this to be longer than 10K, I have the outline pretty much complete so I'm hoping it doesn't take me long to finish this. It's been a while since I've watched season 1, so please point out if anything seems off!

* * *

They're working late into the night, and it's unusual because it's _they_ and not just Mike this time. Harvey has lingered long past the time he usually leaves, listening to Mike chatter on about the case, the weather, his love for crappy TV dinners and everything else in between bouts of comfortable silence only broken by the sound of Mike's highlighter scratching across pages of briefs.

Mike is tired. Subsisting on only a pack of Red Bull and a crappy street vendor hot dog hadn't done much to help the fact that he hadn't gotten a proper amount of sleep since he started working at Pearson-Hardman. Words are starting to blur on the page. He isn't making any headway.

"Once you're done with that file, you'll need to read this one as well," Harvey says, the loudness of his voice jolting Mike out of his stupor.

He curses inwardly. He has highlighted the same word three times now. Mike stands, his knees creaking from how long he has been sitting in the same position. He walks over to Harvey's desk, where Harvey's arm is outstretched, holding out another 500 page brief. Mike's eyes water at the sight. Harvey has stripped out of his suit jacket, is unconsciously rubbing at the back of his exposed neck with his other hand. He looks surprisingly open, not as guarded as he usually is.

_Must be the long hours making his mask slip,_ Mike thinks fondly as he reaches down to take the file, and his hand brushes Harvey's. The touch is electric, and for a moment his whole life flashes before his eyes, but it isn't his life, it's snapshots in a world where everything is _so_ different. Mike is _different. _He's a thief failing to argue his way out of an execution, but succeeding in impressing the only person who could actually manage to get Mike's life spared. And then _Harvey_ does more than manage to get Mike off the hook, he gets him a job working with him, and it's not so different to what Mike is doing now but different enough that Mike feels so dazed, like he's having a fever dream.

He pulls away after a long moment, taking the file with him. Harvey is looking at him like he's grown three heads. Mike can't fault him, but he's still too lost in the fleeting images to do more than blink at Harvey stupidly until he waves a hand in Mike's face and says, "What did I tell you about OD'ing on the Red Bulls? Go home, take a shower, get some sleep, and you better come in tomorrow prepared to _actually_ get something done."

Mike nods. Harvey fixes him with a look that lasts for far too long until Mike _gets_ it and hauls ass to get his stuff together and leave the office.

He looks back as he walks down the hall, just to make sure, and Harvey is still Harvey and when Mike glances at his reflection in the glass enclosing the offices he passes, he's _still_ Mike, and he doesn't know what to make of that.

He doesn't know what to make of any of this in fact. He feels like some kind of windup toy gone unwound for far too long, or more accurately, like someone has flipped his world upside down, leaving Mike as the only one standing right side up.

He bikes to his apartment and narrowly avoids riding right into traffic not once, but three times. It is either a miracle or luck that Mike makes it home in one piece and - _home_, the word feels funny in his mind, unfitting for the ramshackle apartment that he is living in, and when did that change? It's always been home before this, but now he can't shake the way his mind screams "wrong" so loudly that it reverberates off his skull.

God, he has a headache.

He takes two Tylenol and gulps two glasses of water down before stripping out of his suit, only just remembering to hang it up, Harvey's derisive words echoing in his ears before he climbs into bed and lays down to sleep. Mike's mind refuses to let up on the confusing images, and when he finally falls asleep, it's with the memory of a kiss seared into his mind, the image as bright and brilliant and golden as the light that shot across the room when his and Harvey's lips finally met.

* * *

Except that kiss has never happened. Mike knows this, but he is having a hard time convincing his brain of reality.

And his heart, well, that's another matter entirely.

He manages to put it to the back of his mind, compartmentalize it so that the things he _needs_ to do for their latest case don't go by the wayside in favour of running over the feeling of his lips pressed to Harvey's for the thousandth time.

For a week, he's totally okay. And then the case is over, Harvey demolishing his opponent in a single breath when Mike presents them with the facts that they'd tried so desperately to hide, and Mike and Harvey are in Harvey's office, crowing over their victory. Well, Mike's crowing, Harvey is doing his smug "I won, and I don't need to say it because I'm not a child" thing, and Mike reaches his hand out to fist-bump Harvey before he heads home.

Harvey doesn't hesitate, and that should be the first sign that something is up but Mike doesn't notice this because he _smiles_ when Mike's knuckles hit against his, a smile that crinkles the sides of his eyes, so genuinely happy, and it wouldn't catch Mike out, but he has only seen it once before.

And it was in a dream.

The memories come in a flood, the dam he'd been using to hold them back falling to pieces beneath their weight. Mike is kissing Harvey again, brilliant light washing over them, warm and tingling. When they pull away, Mike takes a deep breath, giddy, turned-on, _and _totally freaked out. He says, "What the hell?" and all Harvey does is smile, a smile so full of happiness and so _real_ that it makes Mike forget that they'd just created magic in favour of kissing Harvey again.

Harvey pulls his hand away from Mike's, jolting him back to reality. Mike hastily tries to recover, doing his usual explosion noise as he pulls his hand away, but his heart isn't in it, too busy trying to break its way out of his chest.

"You did good, rookie," Harvey says, still smiling and seemingly not noticing that Mike is floundering.

"I did?" At Harvey's look, he continues, "Of course, I did. You and I, we make quite the team."

Harvey's smile changes. It would be almost imperceptible if Mike wasn't staring at him so hard, but he notices when it becomes more of Harvey's usual "Why am I even humouring you?" smiles.

Mike falters, stops himself just in time from begging Harvey to give him that smile again. He forces the weird dream memories - _memories_? - to the back of his mind again and says, "I'm gonna go. Don't work yourself too hard, Harvey, you might end up proving you're human, break into a sweat or something, and we wouldn't want that, now would we?"

Mike gets this image then, slipping through the cracks of his mental barrier, an image of sweat beads sliding down Harvey's neck before Mike's hand wipes them away as he pulls Harvey to him -

"Quiet, Mike, the more you speak the less inclined I am to let you back into my office," Harvey says in a clear dismissal.

Mike doesn't respond, not sure that he can, and makes a hasty retreat out of Harvey's office. He doesn't look back this time, too terrified of what he might see if he does.


End file.
